Mental Health Issues at Work Are Incredibly Embarrassing (I Hid Mine for Decades)

One day I told my boss and here’s what happened.

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This moment makes me extremely emotional. Most of my career was spent fighting an invisible battle in my head every single day. Things got so dark that I contemplated leaving the workforce forever and living with an elderly relative who survived on government benefits. Thinking about what could have happened if I kept going down that path scares me.

I shared this story on LinkedIn about battling mental illness at work. I didn’t expect hundreds of thousands of people to react to the post and tell their own stories. My inbox lit up. Two words featured in almost every message I got.

“Nobody knows.”

Here’s my story. It will help if you’ve ever faced mental illness at work.

Coming out of the Closet

Walt Disney ran our team. We were a group of misfits that the business had dumped into a team, hoping for a miracle. He moved from the sunny state of Tasmania to be our leader.

I liked Disney. He was a lot like the real Disney I idolized as a kid.

The guy had a weird way of running a business. He replaced many of our sales meetings with Ted…